<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Moscow Lights by eloquated</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28573896">Moscow Lights</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/eloquated/pseuds/eloquated'>eloquated</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>The Weight of Snow [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Established Relationship, Family Feels, Fluff and Angst, Gifts/Surprise, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Internal Conflict, M/M, YOIRarePair2021</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 04:34:10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,016</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28573896</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/eloquated/pseuds/eloquated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>What do you do when your flight is canceled and there are no hotels in the city?</p><p>For Yuri, it means going home.  And bringing Victor with him.</p><p>(Part of the Weight of Snow verse, but can stand alone.)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Nikolai Plisetsky &amp; Yuri Plisetsky, Victor Nikiforov/Yuri Plisetsky</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>The Weight of Snow [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2020247</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>36</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>YOI Rare Pair Week 2021</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Moscow Lights</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>It's so wonderful to be back with these two again, I've missed them!  And just a few days early for Russian Christmas, so of course I had to do something with a bit of holiday!</p><p>While this is part of the Weight of Snow verse, and set after the epilogue, it's perfectly able to stand on it's own.  Just know that, after circling each other for a long time, Victor and Yuri are together.   </p><p>For the YOI Rare Pair Week, the fill 'Gifts/Surprise'.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em> 'Due to inclement weather, Aeroflot Flight 403 from Moscow Sheremetyevo International Airport to St. Petersburg Pulkovo Airport will be delayed until tomorrow morning.' </em>
</p><p>It's December 25th, and Yuri is stuck in Moscow because the winter in Russia is unpredictable, and the airlines like their paying passengers to arrive at their destinations in one piece.  </p><p>Especially paying passengers with fresh gold medals in their luggage.</p><p>He wouldn't have minded, but it's Christmas-- not for him, but for all the Western tourists that had descended on the city-- and the only hotel rooms left in the city are the sort that charge by the hour.  The kind that gives the media too much fodder, and where you have to keep your shoes and clothes on because you never know what's on the sheets.</p><p>Yuri won't be bringing Victor to a place like that.  Not tonight, and not ever.  Even if it means staying in the airport until morning, attempting to sleep on the rows of hard, plastic chairs.</p><p>It's his thirty-third birthday, and this isn't how they expected to spend it.  Victor has said it doesn't matter, not to him; his birthday is right in the middle of the skating season, and he's always been too busy to pay it much mind.</p><p>But it matters to Yuri, especially when his present is back in their apartment.  Safe, but useless to him at that moment.</p><p>The very least he can do is make sure Victor doesn't spend his birthday in a disgusting hotel room.</p><p>"Don't be silly, Yurochka,"  His grandpa's voice is warm, gravely and familiar, over the phone line, "You have your bed here.  Get your things and come home, I'll make something for dinner."</p><p>And Yuri can hear the note of hesitation in his voice when he mentions that Victor can stay, too.  </p><p>"There's room for both of you."</p><p>It's subtle, but he's been waiting for it since they went public with their relationship a few weeks earlier, pushed at the end of a paparazzi's telephoto lens.</p><p>Not that it had been much of a secret before.  But he would have liked to come out to the world in their own time.  </p><p>He hadn't wanted his grandpa to find out that way.</p><p>His heart in his throat, Yuri agrees.</p><p>It's still there as he walks with Victor through the Christmas market, the streets lit with gold and white, like a sea of tiny, twinkling lights.  He's beautiful, face upturned and smiling, forever skipping from one frosty window to the next.  </p><p>Yuri doesn't get homesick for Moscow, not anymore.  But seeing Victor lit by nostalgia and soft light makes his chest ache.  If someone had told him that one day he'd be walking through the market hand-in-hand with Victor Nikiforov, he would have told them they were mad.</p><p>And yet...</p><p>It's a small mercy they don't have space in their luggage for much, because it might be Victor's birthday, but he seems determined to buy a little something for everyone they know.  He has things for Yakov and Mila, and for Georgi-- because it's his birthday tomorrow, and Victor is going to back in the city by then.</p><p>Yuri finds something for Lilia, and wraps the small box in his sweater, in his bag, to keep it safe.</p><p>They walk through the streets of Yuri's childhood, passing the gilded churches and the monuments.  Moscow isn't St. Petersburg, not beautiful the way that city on the water is.  But there's a part of Yuri's heart that will alway remain here.</p><p>The same part that recognizes the small novostroika apartment blocks, in their square, utilitarian grey, as home.</p><p>He'd be embarrassed, but he's seen the house where Victor grew up.  None of them come from wealthy backgrounds, and nothing was handed to them.  They've worked for their success, and he knows Victor won't judge the small apartment.</p><p>They'll both be glad to be out of the cold.</p><p>"He's not going to eat you, Yura."  Victor teases under his breath as they approach the door.  And Yuri knows he's trying to calm them both, because he can feel the nerves radiating from Victor when they touch, a carrier wave of joined fingers and leather gloves.</p><p>He wants to pull him into his arms while he still can.  Because he won't do it when they're inside, and his grandpa is watching. </p><p>Victor wants Nikolai to like him.  It's important, because Yuri is important.  Vital.  The other half of his life.</p><p>They were so lucky with Victor's family, and he doesn't know if lightning can strike them both twice.</p><p>He doesn't know what he'll do if Nikolai decides he isn't good enough.</p><p>Yuri can feel the constant tension through dinner, all three of them sitting around the small table.  It's just there at the back of his neck, like a low vibration he can't ignore.  It's there, settling into his bones and churning in his stomach, turning the food to ash in his mouth.</p><p>It's still early when Victor says goodnight and retreats to the small bedroom that had once been Yuri's sanctuary.</p><p>Victor smiles, but doesn't comment, on the pictures still hanging on the walls, pinned in place with thumb tacks and bits of peeling sellotape.  There's Georgi and Sasha, and it's a strange sort of relief not to see his own younger face looking back at him.</p><p>He's had enough of hero worship, and pedestals...the long drop... being a disappointment, and falling short... for a lifetime.</p><p>In the living room silence reigns, filled with sidelong glances and the steam that rises from their coffee cups.  It's instant coffee, and it smells bitter, just the way Yuri remembers.  It tastes like being five again, stealing sips from his grandmother when he came off the ice.  </p><p>"So this is the boy you're bringing home."  </p><p>And Yuri isn't certain if he's disappointed or simply addressing the elephant in the room.  Because Victor isn't a friend, not just a friend, he's the man Yuri's been seeing for months-- and been in love with since he was a child.</p><p>The heart in his throat isn't sure if it wants to settle in his temples, or plunge into his stomach, and Yuri wipes his clammy hands on his jeans, but it doesn't help.</p><p>"Is that a problem?"</p><p>He sounds defensive and young, and he hates it.</p><p>"What do I know about being a man in your world, Yurochka?  I'm proud of you, more than you can know, but that doesn't mean I understand it.  I tried to teach you to be a good man, and to take care of your family..."</p><p>He trails off, and Yuri freezes on the inside, because he's always feared this.  </p><p>He's heard the horrible things people say about men like him, of course he has, he's not deaf.  He's a man in love with another man, and it's unnatural, and wrong.  Predatory.  Sick and deviant. </p><p>And he's tried not to listen, and not to take it to heart, because he's refused to be ashamed for what he is.</p><p>But it doesn't change the world, and his grandpa is looking at him across the table in their old, shabby kitchen with the faded sunflower wallpaper, and the heater that never stops rattling in the winter.</p><p>A part of Yuri wants to take it all back.  He wants to be someone else, someone that wouldn't make his grandpa doubt him.</p><p>He's never imagined being ashamed of Victor before. </p><p>Because Victor is more than just beautiful and famous, he's good.  And giving.  He's kind in a way that Yuri has never been.  </p><p>Because Victor holds his hand when they leave the house, his fingers threaded through Yuri's, pulling him along with that wonderful, frustrating enthusiasm he has for everything.  He kisses Yuri when they wait for the lights to change at the intersections, and steals the blankets at night, and never lets him doubt that he's loved.</p><p>Even before they had the words for it.  </p><p>How could loving him be wrong?  How could the man that brings him so much joy also diminish him in the eyes of his grandpa?</p><p>And it's not shame, he realizes, it's fear.</p><p>Because he could lose this.  He might never sit across from his grandpa like this again, and how could he stand that?</p><p>It's fear.  Cold and solid, like lead weights dropping into his stomach, growing heavier as the silence continues.  It's endless, and Yuri doesn't know how he's going to stand up under this weight.</p><p>It's why he's never said the words aloud.</p><p>I'm gay.</p><p>I'm in love.</p><p>I want you to be happy for me.  And I can't stand to lose you, because you're all the family I have left. </p><p>Because he's never known, not entirely-- not completely enough to erase the fear-- what his grandpa would say.</p><p>"I don't know how to teach you to be a good husband to a man.  What do I know about anything like that?  I want you to be happy, and I know you're a grown man now, but you're always going to be my Yurochka.  I'm always going to want to help."</p><p>Yuri wasn't sure what he looked like.  Stunned stupid, wide eyed, staring across the small formica table with a look of disbelief.</p><p>"Aren't you ashamed of me?!"  </p><p>The words blurted out artlessly before he could stop them, tripping across his tongue and stumbling out into the world.  They were horrible, and Yuri instantly wishes he could snatch them out of the air, because he wasn't sure he wanted to know the answer.  </p><p>His grandpa blinked slowly, thick grey brows drawing down low over his eyes.  </p><p>And Yuri braced himself for the axe to fall.</p><p>"Of course I'm not.  Where did you get an idea like that?  I don't understand a lot of things about the world, but you're my grandson.  And I know enough to see that this man makes you happy.  It's written all over you."</p><p>Yuri couldn't remember the last time he'd cried, but there was no stopping the tears that spilled over, running down his cheeks; faster and faster, no matter how quickly he tried to scrub them away on his sleeves. </p><p>And his grandpa still smelled of tobacco and soap when he gathered Yuri in against his chest, like he had when he was small; and still bottling everything up until it exploded.</p><p>Some things never changed.</p><p>Nikolai Plisetsky had rough hands.  He'd loved his wife, and his country, and worked all his life to provide for his family.  He'd raised his son, and lost him.  And his grandson, and refused to lose him.  </p><p>And Yuri wants to tell him that it doesn't matter that Victor would be a husband, instead of a wife.</p><p>Because everything he knows about being a good man, he'd learned from his grandpa.</p><p>"I'm old enough to know when to listen to people who are smarter than me-- and your grandmother liked your Victor very much.  He sent you home to her when she was sick."</p><p>Yuri hadn't forgotten.  </p><p>"She'd tell me to stop being an idiot, because you're still our Yurochka.  And she'd be right."</p><p>Late that night, Yuri slid into the narrow bed in his childhood room, curling the long, lean lines of his body around the man he loved.  He buries his face in the soft, silver-grey hair, and flattens his hand against his chest, fingers splayed wide to take in the sleep slowed cadence of his heart.</p><p>"Mmm, alright, Yura?"  Victor yawns, mostly asleep, and half turns to look over his shoulder.</p><p>"Go back to sleep, old man.  I'm fine."  </p><p>In the dark of his old room, Yuri can hear the sounds of the city outside, and his grandpa getting ready for bed.  It's familiar, like any thousand nights of his childhood.  </p><p>He kisses Victor goodnight, and everything is sliding into place.</p><p>New places.  Better ones.</p><p>And the next day when Nikolai presses a heavy, brown paper bag of his piroshki into Victor's hands-- his favourite, still warm and smelling of apples and raisins-- the message is clear.</p><p>Welcome to our family.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>As always, you can find me just about everyone as Eloquated, or just pop into the comments for chat about all things YOI! ❤️</p></blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>